63. Lina
Lina
T hink it through.
Think what through? My lungs burn as I heave in breaths. If Astella is afraid, she isn’t showing it. Does she know something I don’t? Of course she does. She always knows more than anyone else.
There’s more to this than it seems. Okay, so I need to figure it out.
They used my blood to… I swallow down the nausea. They used my blood to wake him, the Ancient One. What does that mean? That my blood has some hidden power they need?
You came in here weak, a voice purrs in my mind. Amora.
God, did that really happen? It feels like a dream. All of it. Most of it has been a nightmare, but a few moments are bright. Amora feels unreal.
They called you nothing. But you are not nothing anymore.
Haze implied I had some hidden power. Was it more than just my blood? They brought in Astella because he needed to find a way to control me. That means?—
They can’t control me without her.
He implied it was simply that they wanted to turn me Nihilian and they needed me to consent, but what if there is more to it? Ivar had trouble keeping me contained when previously I had been utterly at his mercy.
Right now, I am alone with the priestess. She is powerful too.
My body feels so small and weak. I have never had the power to protect myself, let alone fight someone.
But is that what they’re telling me? That I need to fight now, before it’s too late?
A set of skull-masked men march down the aisle and grab Astella. They rip her from my arms and I watch with wide eyes and a helpless spirit. “Don’t hurt her!” I call.
I can’t fight, right?
Astella thrashes against the skull masked soldiers, hollering, but they smother her quickly.
I try to resist as Blythe drags me forward and knocks my feet out from under me, forcing me to my knees in front of the pit of flickering flames. The heat burns my skin. I try to push away, but I’m not strong enough. I was never strong enough.
Weak. I’ve always been weak.
I stare down at my fate—the searing heat of hell.
Inside the red glowing coals is a face with eyes black as night. “My new host,” the voice purrs. “Do you know the fun you and I will have together?”
I scream.This time, when I reach for strength, I push away the bitter rage and instead think of Amora.
I think of Astella. I don’t know what my body is capable of, maybe nothing, but my soul has always been strong.
Not in the typical ways of bravery and fierceness.
But in gentleness and determination to never lose my belief in goodness.
Yesss , Amora hisses to me in my mind. Fight for your light. Do not let the darkness win.
“I will kill, using your body,” the face inside the flames tells me. “You will watch in horror. I will find your anguish amusing. It’s always the same with each new soul I take. And yet, the joy never diminishes.”
The priestess begins chanting. I can’t make out the words, though. Something about death and blight and sacrifice. The warriors begin stomping in unison. Slow at first and then faster. Faster. Faster. Soon, it matches my heartbeat, and it’s all I can hear.
My whole existence is stomping and flames. Roaring red flames.
“No,” I say, clinging to the sunlight I cannot see. Clinging to thoughts of Astella. “No, you cannot have me!” I yell.
The ground begins to tremble beneath me.
“What is that?” the priestess says, breaking the trance. The stomping loses its rhythm. They are all over the place, this way and that.
The stone beneath my feet cracks and then splinters.
I rip my body away from the flames and scramble backwards. Blythe’s eyes grow wide with fear as I push her away. She stumbles back, flopping to her butt but then spins away, instead looking at the open door to the inner sanctum.
Haze is standing there, covered in black blood. It takes me a moment to register what he’s holding.
A severed head.
My mind flickers through this strange new reality. Haze—my Haze, my Dread—is holding the severed head of the Ancient One.
What is he? I think, not for the first time.
“No!” Blythe’s scream shakes the stone beneath me, shrill and pathetic. She scrambles forward. “What have you done?”
Black flames erupt over Haze’s entire body, and one flick of his hand sends the priestess flying backward.
Haze smiles through the black liquid coating his fangs.
“You have a new Ancient One, priestess,” he says, his voice echoed and unnatural. “Bow.”
But Blythe slumps against the wall, eyes blank.
Haze throws his arms wide, casting out new black smoke that covers the whole room. All at once, the skull men drop to the floor just before the magic reaches me.
I scream, as icy-cold black magic slams into my body, taking away everything I’ve ever known. As darkness takes me, I mentally send one last message to the one I love the most.
I’m sorry, Astella.